Artwork > The Space Between

With/In [scale reference]
With/In [scale reference]
Charcoal on Museum Board
51x80"
2007

With/Held
The Space Between


Duality is often an undercurrent in my work. With/Held continues my exploration of the point of contact of hands and feet to investigate expansive aspects of liminal space, longing and confrontation of the body. I am interested in meddling with that duality, utilizing gesture and implied pressure (or lack thereof) to generate a physical tension that transcends to the psychological. Concentration on the disembodied limbs is significant in proposing conflicting functions as anonymous yet strangely personified and individual. The gestures often vacillate between playful and lifeless; support and cold appraisal; supplication and applause; imprinting one with conflicting impressions of presence yet absence; comfort yet tension; contact (or implied contact) yet longing.

I play with art historical references, scale and space to create suggestive scenarios to challenge the viewer's assumptions and expectations, often causing initial impressions to be shifted by the peculiar suggestions of the fragmented limbs. The scale of the pieces command the viewer’s attention, and I am very much interested in the dialogue that occurs between the viewer and these imposing limbs. The spaces created in many of the pieces relationally confront the viewer in terms of their own body and create a space of pending contemplation as to what might occupy that place.